[TriLUG] central bar-code database?

[William Sutton]

I think this depends on your definition of "retail products".  If you mean 
supermarket groceries, that may be.  If you mean consumer 
electronics...doubtful.

-- 
William Sutton


On Mon, 13 Feb 2006, Brian Henning wrote:

> On the other hand, the "bar code" most commonly found on retail products 
>   is a UPC - Universal Product Code.  These are administered by the GS1 
> US (formerly the Uniform Code Council), and theoretically should be able 
> to be traced back to their registered owner.
> 
> ~Brian
> 
> William Sutton wrote:
> > Having worked in a manufacturing firm (one of the largest in the world) 
> > as one of the people responsible for the manufacturing software, I'll wade 
> > in on this and give you the short and long answers.
> > 
> > The short answer (unsurprisingly) is no.
> > 
> > The long answer is somewhat more complicated.
> > 
> > First thing to remember about a barcode:  it isn't magic.  It takes 
> > different patterns of rectangles to represent a single data character 
> > (e.g., 0-9A-Za-z).  Add to that the usual use of a start/stop bit to flag 
> > the scanner that a data pattern has started/ended, and you're looking at a 
> > small amount of data in that barcode.
> > 
> > This isn't really a concern since most of the time, the data represented 
> > by the barcode is printed at the bottom (e.g., 001-4323-4439-A), and is 
> > usually some sort of serial number.
> > 
> > Different serial numbers are constructed differently based on a number of 
> > factors:
> > - How the business that contracted the product wants it composed
> > - How the manufacturer wants it composed
> > - Uniqueness concerns
> > - Lot/sublot/manufacture date desires
> > 
> > Generally you'll see one of a number of strategies employed:
> > - a block representing the lot/sublot
> > - a block representing the date
> > - a block representing the revision
> > - a block representing a unique sequence
> > 
> > Any of these can be fixed or variable width, and in just about any order 
> > desired.
> > 
> > And that's for one manufacturer for one customer for one product.  You 
> > can appreciate the potential complexity involved, particularly considering 
> > the fact that no one manufacturer is going to share this information with 
> > its competitors.
> > 
> > Now, some of these numbers are standardized for one vendor across its 
> > products (think Lenovo ThinkPads) so that any repair work can follow a 
> > standardized serial number format and product repair process (think RMA).  
> > Nonetheless, that may necessitate a manufacturer code being added to the 
> > serial number so that one can know who worked on it...
> > 
> > As a final aside...lots of information is tracked by the serial number.  
> > Depending on what is kept by whom, you can have as little information as 
> > the manufacturer or as much as every step of the manufacturing process 
> > including test results.
> > 
> > HTH :)
> > 
> 
>